


Twenty Years My Friend

by TUNiU



Category: The Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: Gen, Stakeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25375936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: Another day, another job. Even if it has been twenty years.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Twenty Years My Friend

"It's been twenty years my friend," Bobby Hobbes proclaimed magnanimously. "Twenty years since we met."

Darien Fawkes frowned, "what? No, it hasn't," he said in reflex even as he dug his phone out of his pocket. He clicked the screen on and it showed the date: June 9th, 2020. He stared. "Holy shit, it has." He glanced at their environs. "And we're still in the same crappy van."

Bobby thumped the steering wheel, "same crappy van," he echoed in agreement. "I tell you what though."

"What?"

"We outlived DeFerhn, and Chrysalis."

Darien nodded. He stopped and asked, "What was Chrysalis even up to?"

"No idea," Bobby admitted. "But that is not my point."

"What is the point, are you getting to a point?"

"My point is, we are still saving the world, not bad for a couple guys nearing retirement."

"Nearing?"

"Nearing...and past...shut up."

Darien went back to surveilling out his window. It was a dark night, and the Agency could only afford one set of nightvision goggles. Which meant Darien had his eyes coated in quicksilver to see the scene in a type of greyscale infrared, while Bobby saw everything in the more traditional greenscale provided by the goggles.

They were parked in a moderately priced neighborhood in Montana. Hardly a hotbed of terrorist activity.

Darien repeated this observation out loud.

"Not everything is terrorist activity, you know," Bobby chided. "The world can be brought down by little things as well."

Darien glanced back at Bobby, and rolled his eyes upward. Though, as his eyes were currently rendered invisible in their sockets, it did not give the desired effect.

"Jesus, get your face away from me," Bobby squirmed in horror.

"I can do my nose too," Darien teased. "Wanna see?"

"God I hate you."

"Love you, too."

They went back to watching the house. Somewhere in the plain two story structure was a man who could destabilize the entire bitcoin industry. Even after Eberts had explained three times, Darien still didn't understand the importance of the bitcoin market. And he had a feeling Bobby didn't either, no matter how many times he'd nodded and 'ah-ed' and looked pensive. But somewhere in that house was a man who could magically ruin it all. So here they were, sitting in a van, parked ridiculously far away because there were only three houses on the street (again, Montana) and any strange vehicle might alert their mark.

Darien could literally see the curvature of the Earth from where they were to the house. Any farther away and they would be in Idaho, or North Dakota. Darien got distracted trying to find North and almost missed the first car zoom by. It was quickly followed by a second and third and fourth and fifth car, all going so fast their wakes rocked the van. All five cars drove up to the target house.

"What the hell?" Darien whispered.

A SWAT van drove up next.

"Shit!" Bobby exclaimed. "Are they getting our collar," he asked angrily. He started the van, "that is our bonus the feds are taking." He yanked down on the shifter to bring the van out of Park.

Darien flicked the shifter back up. The van's gears juddered hard. "We cannot go in like this, there are too many of them."

"You got a better plan?"

Darien let his quicksilver flow. It seeped out of his pores, a cold wave across his whole body until both he and his clothes were saturated. "Always," he said, invisibly.

"Show off," Bobby muttered.

Darien exited the van, gently closing the door behind him so that the noise didn't alert the feds on scene. He gently picked his way towards the house. He waited until all the swat guys formed up and spreaded around the house and then he climbed up into the driver's seat of the SWAT van and waited, invisibly.

The SWAT team were quite efficient. The house lit up with various smoke and flash grenades and it didn't take them long to drag a man out of the house in handcuffs. The SWAT team loaded the prisoner into the van. And Darien drove off, with the SWAT guys all chasing.

But not for long.

He threw his hand out of the van and slapped it onto the roof. He forced more and more quicksilver out, until the van was coated. Twenty years ago this would have been impossible to do without going into toxicity but now with his gland making its own counteragent to balance the quicksilver use he could make as much as he needed.

Darien sped away as fast as the SWAT van would go. He just needed to get close enough to Bobby to make the switch before the quicksilver flaked off the van. Finally he parked, and ran back to the prisoner hold. He opened the doors visually revealing a floating van interior in an invisible van to anyone happening to look.

The prisoner was a middle aged man with a comb-over and suspenders. Darien stared for half a second, this was the man Eberts said could wipe out billions of dollars of value in a second?

Whatever.

He grabbed the prisoner, who started at being yanked by an invisible someone, and who startled again at the flow of quicksilver over his body. Darien didn't stop, he just dragged until the man started walking on his own. They made out of the SWAT van just as it became visible again. And they made it to Bobby with no one seeing them. Darien shoved the prisoner into their own van and Bobby sedately drove away.

Of course they were immediately stopped and searched, but the feds could only see an empty van with a balding driver. They were waved on.

"Who the hell are you," the man finally found his voice as they were driving out of town. Darien and he had become visible about five miles back.

"We're with the Department of Parks of Recreation," Darien answered.

"Do not engage," Bobby said.

"What," Darien said, "like anyone's gonna believe him."

"I will not have you endangering my bonus," Bobby proclaimed. "We did the job, we get paid."

* * *

There was no bonus. The Fat Man just laughed. Twenty years and nothing changed.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this show. I fell in love with the show back in 2000, and have loved it ever since. But I never wrote for it. I could never find their voices, or capture their ridiculousness.


End file.
